


Edge of All That Is

by phoenixdna



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Destiel if you squint - Freeform, Gen, Suicidal Thoughts, season 4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-29
Updated: 2019-07-29
Packaged: 2020-07-24 20:50:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20020837
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/phoenixdna/pseuds/phoenixdna
Summary: On a long drive one night, Dean considers getting lost.





	Edge of All That Is

Dean was growing tired of driving. After four months of Hell, he had been itching to get back behind the wheel. But now, with Sam asleep in the passenger seat, with the tape clicking away in the Impala’s stereo, with miles to go before they sleep, Dean was tired.

Goddamn he was tired. Sometimes he felt like Hell had left marks carved into his bones.

He wondered if he was going the right way. According to the map, they had to follow this road for another twenty miles. Then he had to turn a right angle and drive for sixty miles. Maybe longer. He couldn’t remember, and it didn’t matter. The world was round, after all.

He remembered, vividly, the movies he watched as a kid. Sinbad the Pirate, Gulliver’s Travels. The idea that the world was flat, that you could just fall off the edge. The edge of all that is.

Sam snored and shuffled, and Dean jumped. He didn’t want to admit it, but his little brother was scaring him. With the whole sleeping with a demon and also the maybe turning into a demon bullshit. Sometimes even when he was asleep. He wondered, sometimes, if he could go on a drive all by himself. Not have to worry about his brother in the passenger seat, slowly turning into the Antichrist, snoring away.

He was afraid of driving on his own. Dean wasn’t afraid of much. But if he was driving on his own, he didn’t know what he’d do. It would be so easy to slip past the yellow line, into the other lane. Maybe there would be a transport truck coming. Maybe he’d hit a tree. Maybe he would just get lost, fall off the edge of the world. He didn’t know what would happen, if he fell off the edge. Maybe he’d plummet straight toward Hell, spend an eternity this time. He thought that death and taxes were the two inevitable things in life. Dean never, ever paid taxes, although being a demon hunter didn’t pay very well to begin with. As for death, well – apparently that wasn’t too permanent either.

Then there was the angel.

Castiel. Clarence. The hand that – no, he couldn’t say that. Maybe the angel would follow his car off the edge of the world. Grab onto the bumper and pull like a drag chute on a racecar. Slow him down until he didn’t plummet any more, just hovered, him and the angel, among the stars between Heaven and Hell.

Dean didn’t like how much he thought about it. There was death, and Hell, and Castiel, and life. They chased each other in an endless cycle like a dog chasing its tail. Crashing his car. Dying. Castiel ripping him out of the pit.

Dean was jumpy, now, all the time. He was alert, before, but not jumpy. Now he jumped at every sound, looked for danger in every shadow and under every streetlight.

Maybe he wasn’t looking for danger. Driving from nowhere to nowhere, tape clicking in the radio, his brother snoring in the passenger seat, he almost hoped he’d get lost. Perdition. Drive off the edge of all that is.

He turned a right angle. In the pool of light under every streetlight, he was looking for an angel.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is part of the lyrics to the song "Whistleblower" by Dan Mangan. It's excellent and I highly recommend it.


End file.
